Sports from the week of April 2, 2003

MCC wins baseball opener

The Panther baseball team opened the 2003 season with an 11-1 loss to Murray County Central at Slayton Tuesday.

"We put too many hitters on base with walks and hit batsmen," said Panther Coach Bill Tauer. "It didn't help that most of our pitchers, Greg Carlson (on Spanish trip), Derek Radke and Pat Spielman were not available."

The Panthers led briefly 1-0 when they scored in the first inning on a walk to Donald Strand, a stolen base and a single by Tim Byrne. However, from that point on it was all downhill with the Rebels scoring twice in the second, twice in the third, one run in the fourth and then exploded for six runs in the last of the fifth inning.

"We were too tentative at the plate and took too many third strikes," observed Tauer. "We are going to have to get more aggressive."

Tracksters have first outdoor meet

The Panther boys and girls track teams participated in the Luverne Quadrangular Tuesday against Luverne, Southwest Christian School and HBC-E-E. No team scores were kept but the Panther girls won 11 events and the boys 2.

Garnering first place finishes for the TMB girls were: the 3200M relay team, Tessa Nelson (triple jump); Jillian Tholen (1600M run); the 400M relay team; Melissa Luckhardt (400 dash); Sarah Fritz (200M dash); Kelly Laleman (3200M run); the 1600M relay team; Melissa Luckhardt (long jump); Tessa Nelson (high jump); Sarah Fritz (100M dash).

For the boys, Brad Lanoue won the 3200M run and Jon Carter won the discus.

"It was a beautiful day for an early April track meet," said Panther Coach Steve Jones. "The warmth allowed us to turn in a number of excellent early season performances. We showed incredible improvement from this year to last year. Our kids are anxious for improvement and this meet definitely got us off to a good start. Tessa Nelson set a new school record of 32-7 in the triple jump beating the one set by Suzanne LaVoy in 2000."

The Panthers will next host the Panther I next Tuesday afternoon.

Wrestling fever rocks Pavilion

Hundreds of fans and youth wrestlers were at the Tracy Prairie Pavilion for the National Youth Wrestling Assoc.'s Region 2 meet Sunday. Ten teams competed. A Tracy team, coached by Kent Cooreman, got beat by one point in the first round. Albert Lea, Adrian, and Windom were the top three teams that qualified for state competition in Rochester this weekend.

However, the season is still not over for 13 local youth wrestlers who have qualified for state individual meet this weekend.